Heloise and The Savoir Faire pulling all manner of disco magic out their hats
Words Ben Graham
“I’d like to have a giant top hat on stage, surrounded by bunny dancers,” Heloise Williams says when asked what kind of stage show she’d have if success gave her an unlimited budget. “And giant magic wands, like a giant magic show, and I’d appear out of the hat. And I’d like to fly out over the audience. I did that, once - in a harness. But really, I’d just be happy to make enough money to quit waiting tables.”
Minneapolis-born, New York-based, electropunk disco diva Heloise (pronounced ‘Eloise,’ like the Barry Ryan/Damned song), has just released her debut album proper, Trash, Rats and Microphones, with backing band The Savoir Faire - energetic dancers Joe Shephard and Sara Sweet Rabidoux, plus Heloise’s fiancée James Bellizia on guitar, bassist Jason Diamond and drummer Luke Hughett. They fuse a high camp, performance art aesthetic honed on New York’s downtown club scene with Heloise’s serious songwriting ability and ambition, inspired as much by underground electro, techno and alt. rock as the fusion of seventies disco, new wave and post punk that’s evident on the album.
They sound like they couldn’t come from anywhere but New York; as if the Dolls had jammed with Grandmaster Flash, Chic and ESG at Studio 54, or Blondie had come together with Madonna and Fischerspooner at the Paradise Garage, or LCD Soundsystem and Radio 4 and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were all blonde. Gerard from Radio 4 helped out on the album, while Debbie Harry guests on two tracks, much to Heloise’s awe: “I still can’t believe we’re friends!”
The band actually started when Heloise met Joe and Sara while studying in Vermont, Indiana. “I was singing in a jazz band, but I started writing electronic music because I loved that stuff and I wanted to have control over every detail,” she says, laughing. “Vermont is one of those towns where everybody plays real instruments, so when I played them my songs it was like, ‘Meh…’ There really wasn’t much of an electronic music scene.”
Moving to New York, Heloise gradually built up the live band, incorporating more rock and disco elements into the songs. She’s already planning the next album, determined that it’ll sound radically different again.
There’s no telling what Heloise will pull out of her hat next.
